Photo By Capt. Daniel Phelps | Senior Master Sgt. Jonathan Borth, 129th Maintenance Group accessories flight chief,...... read more read more
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“Our quality assurance programs were incredibly dated,” Senior Master Sgt. Jonathan Borth, 129th Maintenance Group accessories flight superintendent, recalled. “We needed to update these programs and find a way to build routines.”
About 8 – 10 years ago, Borth was a part of a unit that failed a unit effectiveness inspection when he realized a key reason for their failure was due to gaps in various processes for production within the Wing. They needed to find a way to fill these holes, so it didn’t happen again.
He knew there had to be a better means to track items, people, and programs in a way that would create, establish, and maintain accountability. However, he was unsure where to start.
After some research, he found that building something in Microsoft Excel was going to be his best option - except for one roadblock, Borth said.
“I didn’t know anything about Excel,” he said.
So, Borth began a deep dive into the program.
“I just started watching YouTube videos,” he said. “I found that everything I was wanting to do, and wanting to track could be made and done in the program.”
The current iteration of the program is the result of years of fine tuning and tweaking. On top of the success of filling gaps in the quality assurance programs, it has also proved to be a massive time saver.
Though MIDAS started as a standalone product leveraging Excel, and through iteration, it landed on a set of fundamental principles that established a means of determining what a Unit would focus on to define success, Borth said.
“As MIDAS has grown, it’s essentially outgrown its Excel format and morphed into a discipline,” he said. “By making the AFIs [Air Force Instructions] into a tool, we basically established a repeatable roadmap.”
Lt. Col. Daniel Barron, Hap Arnold Innovation Center director, worked with Borth on helping move the project forward from one iteration of the project to the next.
The project essentially takes numerous pieces of data and makes it digestible for the basic user, Barron said. The program lets teams know what steps they need to take next to successfully operate. This data processing is vital to inspector general offices.
Inspector general offices have dig through massive amounts of data, and put together presentations for commanders on their findings, Borth said. These presentations often take weeks to analyze and develop.
“What MIDAS is now able to do is take all of that data that needs to be analyzed, run it through the program and build the presentation into a Power Point,” he said. “It takes two week’s worth of work and accomplishes it in 15 minutes.”
Another added bonus is how the project allows supervisors to stay on top of their programs and make corrections and adjustments to deficiencies in real time, he said. They no longer have to wait for inspections to find the holes, the program lets them see the areas that need to be corrected in the moment.
The best kinds of projects are the ones that actually meet the needs of the people who are doing the work, Barron said.
“MIDAS was the result of a problem, and it found a solution,” Barron added.
“With real time access to these programs, units are able to stay green and maintain readiness ahead of UEIs,” Borth said.
Since Borth put together this program, units using MIDAS have been able to achieve and maintain readiness and quickly turn “red” areas in their programs and processes into “green,” he said.
“On top of that, we have had numerous successful unit effectiveness inspections due to the utilization of MIDAS,” he added.
Borth explained that word of the program has been spreading across the Air Force, and he has been sharing the program with other units.
“I often get calls from other Wings with questions about MIDAS and how to tailor aspects of it to their needs,” he said.
MIDAS has made headway into the future, Borth said.
“Using more modern and capable tools, MIDAS will be pulling data from the recently established Envision platform and displaying it on Secure PowerBi dashboards hosted in the AWS Secure Cloud,” he said. “This is what we will be fielding this year prior to our upcoming UEI.”
| Date Taken: | 02.08.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.08.2024 18:16 |
| Story ID: | 463523 |
| Location: | MOFFETT FIELD, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 60 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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